BFC seeks better student-faculty ratio

With one of the worst student-faculty ratios in the Big Ten, IU faculty and administrators agree the numbers must be improved.\nOne of the overall goals of the Bloomington Faculty Council is to increase the number of faculty in Bloomington, said BFC President Robert Eno, professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures.\n"The underlying issue is the need for us to (improve) the poor student-faculty ratio Bloomington has," Eno said. "It all comes down to class size."\nOn this issue, the University administration's goals are aligned with those of the Faculty Council, Eno said.\nMore of a devotion to academics is foremost in planning. \n"The faculty need to know that in administrative areas we are being as lean as we can, devoting all of our possibilities to the academic mission," Eno said. \nAt Tuesday's BFC meeting, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Judith Palmer provided an overview of implementation strategies that the Task Force to Review Non-Academic Administrative Services work teams have developed over the past few months.\nSeveral years ago, IU President Myles Brand appointed the task force and utilized the Arthur Andersen Higher Education Consulting Practice, which issued 16 recommendations based on their review of six categories: purchasing and warehousing, human resources, finance, indirect cost recovery, auxiliary enterprises and student services, Palmer said.\nThe report concluded that the University was already well-run with regard to Administrative Services and costs, Palmer said at the meeting. She said Arthur Andersen reported the University needed to further improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of its administrative services.\n"We all need to keep watch on ourselves," Eno said. "It's good when other groups look at our performance as well."\nAfter the findings were reported, Palmer said the task force allowed time for faculty and administrators to discuss findings.\n"Starting in June, the task force appointed some work teams to look more and develop some implementation strategies," Palmer said.\nThe final report of the work teams will be available this year.\nReorganization of University systems\nDon Hossler, vice chancellor for enrollment services, presented a report of the reorganization of Student Enrollment Services (SES) and an update on the Student Information System (SIS) project.\nHossler, co-chairman of the SIS Steering Committee, said SIS is responsible for implementing the new information system. The SES is responsible for the management and maintenance of the new system.\nHossler said the system is being replaced because of its outdated technology.\n"All of those systems were developed in-house in the early 1980s, which means that they're based on technology that was state-of-the-art in the early 1980s," Hossler said. "So they need to be replaced. That's what the SIS project is all about."\nHossler said IU decided to purchase PeopleSoft software and is now in the process of implementing the system and integrating different systems into one system. He said the process is expected to be completed in December 2004.\n"I think it's fair to say that this is a very complex project. You can't do it for nothing," he said.\nHossler said every dollar spent to replicate functionality across units or to replicate services across different campuses is a dollar less spent to educate students.\n"We're not here to have the world's best student systems, but we're in the business to provide the best education possible," he said.\nA group of faculty and possibly assistant deans will be formed to assist administration in assessment decisions, Eno said.\n"We have to develop structures so faculty can participate responsibly in cost-benefit decisions," Eno said. "We have to have some mechanism by which people on all campuses feel that there is a credible group of decision makers who will assess claims for their resources."\nAllocating funds\nA follow-up discussion clarifying campus assessments -- the process by which funds are distributed to different sections of the University -- was presented by Maynard Thompson, dean for budgetary administration and planning.\nThompson said assessments are determined by a two-step process that determines how the funds are allocated to different areas of the University.\nThompson said the presentation was important because of its relevance to the faculty.\n"There was an interest in learning how that process worked," Thompson said. "I think that there's an impact on morale if people think the process is indecipherable"